


The Fold

by cyanocorax



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, attempt at strangulation, kids beatin each other up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanocorax/pseuds/cyanocorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When they were boys at Storm’s End, he and Robert used to go down to the armory to watch Donal Noye make swords for their lord father.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fold

When they were boys at Storm’s End, he and Robert used to go down to the armory to watch Donal Noye make swords for their lord father. “Those will be ours, one day,” Robert proclaimed, all ten years of him. He was tall for his age, even then, and strong, with an artful tumble curls framing his square and handsome face. 

Donal would show them how he forged the steel, folding it repeatedly to give it strength. “Patience is the key,” he told them. “Good steel cannot be rushed.” Robert never took the words to heart. When Noye did finally make him his first sword he ran down to the forge every day to see if it was finished yet, and would grow angry when he saw that it was not. “Little lordling,” the smith laughed in the face of yet another tantrum, “do you want a stick to clean your nails with, or a blade to slay your enemies? Give it time.”

Robert had huffed, and turned red, before marching back into the castle. But Stannis had stayed. He watched Noye pull the blade out from the coals and lay it flat against the anvil, the tip of it so red it burned the shape of itself into Stannis’s eyes. _Clang. Clang. Clang._ Noye’s hammer spoke to the steel sternly, and the steel obeyed.

Some hours had passed before Noye finally dipped the little blade into the bucket of water at his feet, and steam filled the forge. The sky had grown dark. Stannis watched the smith raise the sword up to his eyes, the last rays of a dying sun making it shine as if it were still on fire. Then Noye looked down, and seemed to notice Stannis for the first time. He smiled again, his teeth white against his soot-stained face. “Your turn will come,” he promised, before hanging Robert’s sword up on the back of the forge alongside the others. 

Robert would tease him with it later, brandish it about and say, “I’ll be the greatest warrior in the Seven Kingdoms, just you see.”

“Idiot. You can’t even beat Donal yet, and he’s only our smith.”

Robert had darkened at that. He set down his steel sword, replacing it with a blunted one, testing its weight. “Maybe not,” he snapped, “but I can still beat you.”

“I’m smaller, of course you- ow!” Robert thumped him across the thighs with the flat of his blade, laughing. They didn’t spar so much anymore, not since that time Robert had broken Stannis’s nose and cracked three ribs when they went crashing into a wall. But Stannis marched into the armory and found a sword and shield, despite knowing they were useless, because the alternative was running back inside like a craven, and that was no alternative at all. 

Robert broke his nose again, and nearly pulled his arm from its socket. But Stannis managed to blacken his eye in the bargain. So that was alright.

Their mother scolded them that night as she watched Maester Cressen dress their cuts. She would scold Noye too, later, for letting them fight unattended. Robert rolled his eyes as soon as she’d turned her back, and punched Stannis’s arm. And laughed. 

It was summer. In two years Stannis would have his first true blade as well, but by then Robert was slinging a war hammer, dreaming of tourneys and melees. Their father had filled their heads with every story he could think of. “I met your mother at a tourney,” he informed them, while Lady Cassana looked on, irritated but fond. “She gave me her favor and I rode better than I ever had before.”

“Until your mare lost her footing and you tumbled off before Ser Richard’s lance even touched you. I remember it well. Lord Steffon the Surefooted indeed!”

Their father roared with laughter at that. Robert’s laugh. They had the same hair, the same shape of face. Stannis’s hair was dark, yes, and his eyes were blue, but he had his mother’s sharp chin and her long, pointed nose, and none of the family’s mirth. 

“My serious little boy,” Lady Cassana said on the day she left. She touched the corners of his mouth with her thumbs, tugging gently. “Smile. We will be home very soon. And we will have a bride for your cousin Rhaegar.” 

If he closed his eyes now, he could see their ship still. See it kiss the rocks and receive a slap in return. See it shatter. Robert had shouted and shouted, even made to throw himself into the waves. He would have succeeded, had it not been for Stannis wrenching at him, Stannis and Maester Cressen both, and below their feet within he castle walls Renly was screaming in his crib.

Both of them caught chills that night and were bundled into the same bed to recover, told to keep away from their baby brother. Robert would not speak, only turn his back and face the wall every night. But he would he would thrash in his sleep as he dreamt, as if he were pushing through the waves of the bay, and succeeded in forcing Stannis to the floor more than once. Between one brother’s tossings and another brother’s shrieks, and the broken fool’s eerie songs, Stannis slept little. He closed his eyes and saw only the breaking wood, his mother’s face as she said goodbye. 

Maester Cressen went down to the beach for days and days to come, helping men name the bodies and drag the corpses up to the castle. Robert wanted to see them. The maester put his foot down at that, saying no child should know such things. “Old man, I am lord of Storm’s End now,” Robert shouted. “I order you to _let me in_.”

“No, child. You are a boy, of only five and ten,” sighed Cressen, who made to place a withered hand on Robert’s shoulder. Robert yanked himself away and ran off, swearing. 

Stannis found him in the yard, hacking at a sack of straw with his blade, ripping it to pieces, his face red and flushed and hot. Stannis waited a few moments before speaking, his arms folded across his chest.

“Robert, you shouldn’t speak to Maester Cressen that way. He only means well.”

Robert swung around, the sword quivering. “Don’t tell me what to do, little brother. I am—”

“The ‘Lord of Storm’s End’,” Stannis hissed. “Yes. I heard you. But you’re not, you’re too thickheaded to be lord of anything, you _dolt_. Father’s the lord—”

“Father’s dead!” Robert screamed, his voice cracking. “If you’d let me—”

“If I’d let you _kill yourself_ , you mean, like the idiot—”

“Craven, that’s what you are. Coward.” 

Stannis froze. “I’m not a coward,” he whispered.

“Coward,” Robert sang, smiling, laughing. “Coward. Coward. Coward, coward, _coward_!”

Stannis flew at him then, snatching up the nearest blade his hand could find and stabbing it at Robert’s face. Robert deflected it easily, made a lunge of his own. The sky had darkened; dimly, Stannis remembered the maester mentioning rain that morning at breakfast, but Robert was coming at him now, vicious and relentless and aiming to kill. They were shieldless; the blows kept narrowly missing their heads and arms, whooshing past with inches to spare. Robert was screaming a string of curses and swears, and bellowing, “It’s all your fault you little worm, I wish you’d never been born, mother and father are dead and it’s _all your fault_ , I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” Stannis returned with silence, teeth grit, nostrils flared. He feigned to the left, then threw all his weight into Robert’s exposed side, and the sky opened up with a rumble as they fell. There was dirt in his mouth and nose, dirt fast turning into mud.

Robert had found his sword again, was rolling towards him, but Stannis kicked him away, stood, was dragged down. It was a blur of pain then. The flat of Robert’s blade whacked down onto him and he tasted blood; he slammed his knee up and heard Robert yell and the sword go flying. In their blindness they groped at each other, Robert still making a ridiculous amount of noise, “I hate you, I hate you,” straddling him, forcing him into the wet ground. The rain made their clothing heavy, pushed their dark hair into their eyes. And then Robert’s hands were around his neck and squeezing; he tried to wrench them away but everything was too slippery and Robert was too strong, and Stannis was starting to see spots; “I hate you, I hate you—”

He looked up and, gasping, found Robert’s face and watched it slowly start to fade until it was only two blue dots in a sea of brown and black, and behind him the sky, the sky, flat and grey and cold. 

Then for a moment the world was dark and Stannis was alone.

Things rushed back in waves— the blood to his head, the air to his lungs, the sight to his eyes. 

Robert was sitting on his belly, panting, hands at his sides, and silent. A low grumble of thunder occupied the space around them. 

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Robert said at last, reaching up to wipe the mud from his brow and succeeding only in spreading more of it around. Underneath all the dirt his face was still red and swollen, and blood was leaking out of his mouth. “Stannis, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Yes you did.” Stannis tried to sit up, but all of him ached and burned. He fell back and let himself sink a little deeper into the mud. “You meant all of it.” 

Robert rolled off of him and stood, stumbling and weary. A hand reached down. Stannis did not take it. 

He watched his brother’s shadow move across the ground and disappear behind the castle walls. 

Some days later Robert left to live at the Eyrie and learn how to be a lord. He wrote home in two moons, a short note telling of the grandness of the Vale, and of Ned Stark, whom he’d begun to love as a brother. 

Stannis set the letter down after he’d read it, grit his teeth, and felt nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> combing the books for chronology of events led to no end of frustration so i just went with the sequence where robert was fostered at the eyrie after steffon and cassana died because that seemed to make the most sense
> 
> but if someone can show me evidence saying it happened otherwise i will shrug and call this an AU


End file.
